all 124 comments

[–]nuktl[S] 102 points103 points  (32 children)

Medical journal article: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/12/9/958

Summary:

  • 50-year-old female virologist had history of recurrent breast cancer.
  • First diagnosed in 2016, she was treated conventionally with a mastectomy and chemotherapy. The cancer then returned in 2018 and was surgically removed.
  • In 2020, the cancer recurred again, with imaging showing it had already invaded the pectoral muscles and skin.
  • Following this news, she decided to self-experiment using her expertise in virology. She told her oncologists, who agreed to monitor her progress.
  • In her laboratory, she prepared two viruses:
    1. Edmonston-Zagreb measles vaccine strain (MeV), the virus used in pediatric measles vaccines.
    2. Vesicular stomatitis virus Indiana strain (VSV), an animal strain with low pathogenicity in humans, causing at worst mild flu-like symptoms.
  • She injected MeV directly into her tumour multiple times over three weeks, followed afterwards by a similar course with VSV.
  • The tumour shrank significantly after the treatment. There was also increased infiltration of it by white blood cells. It softened and became more mobile. It was then surgically removed.
  • As of the article's publication, she had been cancer-free for 4 years.
  • The authors emphasize they don't endorse self-experimentation, and this single case study doesn't replace a clinical trial. But given the treatment's effectiveness it warrants further clinical investigation

[–]Dragoncat99But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, but Ilya only. 77 points78 points  (26 children)

Literally the only ethical concern I could think of regarding this would be if she used a virus that was potentially harmful and contagious, but it sounds like she was very responsible, using well understood and weak viruses.

[–]Odd-Kaleidoscope5081 13 points14 points  (7 children)

Perhaps there is more. Where did the funding come from? I assume doing this things is not cheap and requires specialized equipment, which does not belong to the scientist.

Either way, it seems like an amazing feat.

[–]Dragoncat99But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, but Ilya only. 24 points25 points  (5 children)

I don’t think the cost of running the equipment long enough to perform this experiment would be significant enough to throw a fit over. At worst, she may have to send a check to her lab. Not exactly an ethical conundrum.

[–]GPTfleshlight 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Could be like some places where anything you come up with while employed there that they hold all the rights to your creations. So even if it did cost lab money they get first rights for ownership.

[–]AspectSpiritual9143 [score hidden]  (1 child)

Aww they want to own her cancer tumor :/

[–]Citrik [score hidden]  (0 children)

Search the term “cell lines” if you think owning cells is a joke.

[–]Odd-Kaleidoscope5081 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I have no expertise to determine if experiments and surgeries like that are expensive, so I can only speculate.

[–]Dragoncat99But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, but Ilya only. 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Same. I presume the surgery was paid for by her regardless, though.

[–]feistycricket55 [score hidden]  (0 children)

I read Mustafa Suleyman's (deepmind) recent book a little while ago, and iirc he said it is well known in the biotech/government circles that someone with bad intentions and about $20k's worth of lab equipment could engineer the next virus to kill 1 billion people.

[–]icedrift [score hidden]  (0 children)

I think there is a justifiable ethical concern of publishing the results. Not saying it's unethical but concern is valid given medicine's grim investigative history.

[–]Abject-Ad-6469 -5 points-4 points  (11 children)

It's unethical to promote self-treatment because Joe Shmoe down the street says to himself "Psh, I know what I'm doing, too. If she can do it, so can I. Where's that TikTok video about cutting something out of something else. Likes are basically equivalent to a phd, or whatever, right? This influencer has to know what they're doing. Let's gooooooo"

/grabs knife tries to cut out cancer, dies from infection.

[–]Temp_Placeholder [score hidden]  (4 children)

She's a virologist. That's like watching an engineer on youtube design an engine, it's literally in the name that this is being left to the pros.

[–]Thomas-Lore [score hidden]  (2 children)

It could also lead to a few other virologist or researchers trying something similar - for fame of discovering a new cure - for non-life threatening diseases and killing or crippling themselves when it turns our their cure does not work or is faulty.

I think that is the main reason bioethics is against it.

[–]ManufacturerOk5659 [score hidden]  (1 child)

they are consenting and understand the risks. seems like there is a lot more to gain compared to what could be lost. bioethics be damned

[–]BiteImportant6691 [score hidden]  (0 children)

they are consenting and understand the risks.

Ok, so they weren't tricked into it by someone else. I guess we have that covered.

But there's still a larger issue of what kind of standards a profession is putting forward and holding themselves to.

seems like there is a lot more to gain compared to what could be los

You need more than a single case study from a patient who wasn't picked due to their suitability for a study.

[–]Abject-Ad-6469 [score hidden]  (0 children)

You're a lot less likely to hurt someone by building an engine.

You also need to consider what I was replying to, they said they couldn't think of another reason it's unethical. There's more than a handful of reasons.

[–]duckrollin [score hidden]  (3 children)

That's just natural selection.

The same people are anti-vax or use horse dewormer to try and cure covid.

It shouldn't discourage scientists from doing what they need to do.

[–]Abject-Ad-6469 [score hidden]  (2 children)

What do you mean? The article would qualify as natural selection using your reasoning. Also, that's the point - people trusted others to guide them properly, but they don't know how to vet information, so they harmed themselves.

They can do whatever they want, I'm talking about another aspect of it being unethical. Ethics are agreed upon standards that anyone in society should adhere to. Ever seen a warning that says "Professionals, do not attempt"?

[–]duckrollin [score hidden]  (1 child)

If people take medical advice from random tiktok videos then they're a lost cause tbh

[–]Abject-Ad-6469 [score hidden]  (0 children)

My point was that these experiments give them the gumption to take the risk. The TikTok part was supporting arguments.

[–]Coby_2012 [score hidden]  (0 children)

That’s not unethical, that’s Darwinism.

[–]Waste_Rabbit3174 [score hidden]  (0 children)

And? If Dumbfuck Joe wants to mutilate himself with instructions from tiktok who are we to stop him?

[–]BiteImportant6691 [score hidden]  (2 children)

The ethical considerations run more towards her publishing this in a journal as if it's a scientific study. You'll notice he's replying to the news of the journal publishing the paper. Almost like that's what is being talked about.

The internet is just doing the internet thing of thinking they understand a subject, injecting themselves into the conversation just so they can dogpile on people and engage in character assassination. If you think "It's unethical to treat your own cancer" at all responds to the concerns then you have fundamentally misunderstood the concerns.

He even made a point of saying he's happy she's better but evidentially this was not enough clarification.

[–]Bort_LaScala [score hidden]  (1 child)

It is a case study, and the title of the paper indicates this clearly. Medical journals publish case studies all the time. So what is the issue?

[–]BiteImportant6691 [score hidden]  (0 children)

I'm not the one with the issue. I don't publish in the medical field so I wouldn't really be the person to comment on this (and neither are 99% of the people replying, btw).

I'm just clarifying that the internet is misunderstanding what the original person is talking about. You could get clarification from him but his mentions are probably flooded by people who think he was saying it's a bad thing she successfully treated her cancer.

If you look at the screenshots in the OP quite literally every single one of them (outside the first two) mentions the treatment but never mentions the journal publishing once.

[–]GreatBigJerk 14 points15 points  (1 child)

Ignoring the obviously dumb ethics response. The gist is that she injected viruses into the tumor. Her immune system went after them and weakened the tumor. Then it was easier to surgically remove?

That seems pretty amazing and could be applicable to a lot of tumor types. I hope it gets a lot of research.

[–]Responsible_Wait2457 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Remember: One of the first doctors to suggest that maybe you should wash your hands before helping to deliver babies was left at and most of the major scientists of the day refused to follow his advice and tons of women died shortly after childbirth

https://youtu.be/UnV05wN3ZGs?si=AHRLX5VeAr8ZvWvp

[–]ExarchiasI am so tired of the "effective altrusm" cult. [score hidden]  (2 children)

So far I see her process was totally ethical, (if everything that is stated on this bullet list is true of course). On the other hand I do consider the ethical concerns that were raised as silly in the best case or totally unethical in the worst case.

Namely:

  • She used her own expertise
  • She was under consulation and supervise.
  • She had her permission to treat her own body.
  • She saved her life.
  • She took a legitimate process to publish the results, to help the medical society to investigate further the results and to save many other lives.

Ethicists, same as AI ethicists, tend to be straight up evil sometimes.

Disclaimer: I don't belong to the medical community. I adress the matter from a purely academic perspective.

[–]ManufacturerOk5659 [score hidden]  (0 children)

they literally exist to limit progress

[–]Responsible_Wait2457 [score hidden]  (0 children)

I think the best thing in these cases is that when he was President Donald Trump signed a bill allowing patients Who had exhausted all other options to try any experimental or even dangerous procedures if there was a chance you could save their life. Before that it was medically unethical and doctors wouldn't perform this

[–]IntergalacticJets 83 points84 points  (6 children)

Wow how does someone twist their mind to the point where they want to tell a dying person they have no right to try experimental treatment? 

If they understand the dangers, I say no one has a right to stop them. If they are mislead by the researchers/doctors, then that’s obviously a different situation. 

[–]DirtPuzzleheaded8831 [score hidden]  (1 child)

Because they're so fixed on a strict set of rules burned into their brain. 

[–]Responsible_Wait2457 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Like back when they could not figure out why so many new mothers were dying shortly after childbirth. Until one doctor proposed "hey maybe the doctors that usually handle dead bodies should wash their hands before delivering babies"..

And all the other doctors laughed at him and refused to do it

[–]gmdtrn [score hidden]  (1 child)

This is unfortunately the state of medicine and medical research. It has been for ages. The bulk of the authorities, and even individuals, in the industry believe they should be making decisions on other peoples behalves rather than helping them in decision making. Of course, we claim to be big on "shared decision making" until you run into a decision that the community disagrees with. It's obnoxious.

[–]Responsible_Wait2457 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Well the bulk of doctors and people of any profession are barely proficient at it. Take any industry or profession and they asked me majority of people in it are fucking idiots that can barely do it right

Most mechanics aren't going to be able to diagnose your car perfectly by listening to it once and fix it perfectly. They're just good enough to do the most common things.

Most pilots just good enough to do it okay. But they're not Tom Cruise from top gun

And most doctors aren't doctor house. They're just good enough to get it done okay and thanks to the actual experts creating a very strict stepper procedures for diagnosis They made it essentially foolproof so that even okay doctors are more likely to get it right..

But there's a reason that when someone is super amazing at their job they get noticed. Because most people aren't super amazing at their job

And with the scientists most of them aren't studying it they're just reading off what someone else from 50 years before it said when they studied it and refusing to accept that maybe there's anything new to find. Tons of them laughed at Einstein too "relativity? Neutrons? Wtf?"

[–]EsdrasCaleb 8 points9 points  (0 children)

dependong on country. No you can't and yea its crazy...

[–]fastinguy11▪️AGI 2025-2026 [score hidden]  (0 children)

It’s called lawful evil or lawful neutral. Depending on context.

[–]Asocial_Stoner 47 points48 points  (25 children)

Ok guys, please help me out:

Where is there an ethical problem here? They say there is, but I just can not for the life of me imagine where it is.

[–]Bleglord 34 points35 points  (1 child)

“She didn’t do it the way I was told things have to be done even though we’ve made no progress that way”

[–]Responsible_Wait2457 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Most were just follow the book written by someone that was more of a pioneer than men rather than pioneering themselves

That's why the people who make great discoveries get noticed and written about in the history books.. Because most people werent like that

[–]Worried_Archer_8821 18 points19 points  (1 child)

She didn’t use a tonload of money and time for something that might possibly perhaps aleviate symptoms for a limited period. It’s hurting the investors bottom line😑

[–]Responsible_Wait2457 [score hidden]  (0 children)

No see you have to have a theory and then study that theory for 20 years. Create a vague test of that theory but then is studied for another 20 years. Then you have to go through a bunch of FDA and corporate bureaucratic bullshit for another 20 years before you're allowed to move on to the next stage of testing. Then you're dead so your kids will have to pick up where you pick left off and maybe three or four generations later that idea you had that was pretty much perfect finally gets to the part where you can test it on mice

[–]piracydilemma▪️AGI Soon™ 15 points16 points  (0 children)

There is none, and anyone who may try to convince you otherwise is simply wrong.

[–]Scientiat [score hidden]  (0 children)

There is none. The real problem is these hacks pretending to be worried about ethics when they are in reality only worrying about personal and institutional PR. That's literally it.
Source: have been involved in numerous clinical trials and ethical boards are a circus.

[–]neryen [score hidden]  (1 child)

I feel they should have been able to and don't think there is a real ethical problem since it was a terminal illness, but others may say:

Informed consent - someone with a terminal illness may not be really capable of making an informed consent to the dangers of the experimental procedure/medication.

Lacking oversight by doing it alone, increases the overall risk if you do not have others helping monitor for adverse reactions, especially if the researcher is suffering from a terminal illness.

Low data reliability with a single case and self-reporting.

Conflicts of interest when a researcher is also the subject for publishing a paper, usually you want a bit of separation so the paper can be objective.

Those would be the main concerns I can think of that they may have. It generally comes down to informed consent and the fact that a terminal patient may not have the capability of objectively giving it when they are also the doctor, terminal illnesses can mess with the mind a great deal and we wouldn't see a surgeon performing surgery on themselves while intoxicated as a good thing, so the thinking goes down a similar road.

[–]Asocial_Stoner [score hidden]  (0 children)

This is the response I was looking for, thank you.

But yeah, none of these things are a problem imo.

If you're in favor of euthanasia for the terminally ill (as am I) then the informed consent point is moot. Even if the experimentation were to be misguided, if the alternative is death and suffering anyway, then who cares? And she was literally doing it to herself, so what are these people saying, that we should infringe upon her bodily inviolability in order to protect herself from herself intruding on her own bodily inviolability? That doesn't make any sense.

The more interesting point is about publishing it potentially encouraging others to do the same who are not terminally ill but want recognition. But ultimately, they are adults, why should we limit them in attempting this if they so desire?

I smell a slippery slope towards authoritarianism...

[–]Worried_Archer_8821 23 points24 points  (0 children)

This is horrible! How could she dare to try to cure herself? She should have rolled over and accepted she would die horribly and painfully at a hospital being drugged to the eyeballs, leaving her family in eternal hospital fees /s

If nobody take the risk/step, how are we to progress?

[–]cpthb 17 points18 points  (2 children)

I heard whispers but hoped it wasn't true

This is a wild thing to say when hearing about someone's cancer recovery.

[–]Oracle365 2 points3 points  (1 child)

He said that not about her recovery but about her experimenting on herself.

[–]HandOfThePeople [score hidden]  (0 children)

Which might help millions in the future, if she's actually on to something effective. How could she.

[–]Anynymous475839292 18 points19 points  (0 children)

He's just worried his job is at risk because people are fed up and creating their own cures

[–]dimitrusrblx 37 points38 points  (1 child)

This guy convinces me more that bioethics are a cult dedicated to shorten human lifespan as much as possible by declining positive research and experimentations.

Glad she made it.

[–]TemetN [score hidden]  (0 children)

Yeah, I keep thinking there must be some reason, but the honest truth is I can't recall the last time I saw anyone from that community make a relevant and accurate comment on their own area in regards to future experiments. You basically only see them doing things like opposing gene editing, opposing transhumanism, opposing self-experimentation, etc. It's at the point I really don't think they should be called ethics at all, because it seems more like religion than any sort of rigorous world view.

[–]National_Date_3603 17 points18 points  (2 children)

The only thing this is "dangerous" for is the job of the person posting. For most things, sure, go to the doctor if you're uneducated, but we've had the foundation science for LEV style DIY cures for a long time, if regulators won't allow hospitals to administer them, people really should start administering themselves.

[–]dijc89 [score hidden]  (1 child)

This is precisely the ethical problem here. It makes literal fools like you think they could treat themselves better than medical professionals. Her success is what makes this easy to dismiss for people. If she would have died this discussion would look very differently.

You people should read the declaration of Helsinki for a little reminder why medical ethics exist.

[–]National_Date_3603 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Rise my children, it is time for medical tourism.

We must seek out increasingly complex gene therapies, on foreign shores. We must insist that those who can fund it do, for their own sake as well as ours.

[–]PMzyox [score hidden]  (0 children)

The guy who invented the Polio vaccine tested it on himself. The only reason this is a concern is because suicide is illegal.

[–]gmdtrn [score hidden]  (0 children)

The only duty a person taking on risk for health purposes should have is to demonstrate that it is truly a personal risk (no spillover onto others) with a decision made of sound mind.

Of course some will protest, "but, some people will see this and try to treat themselves!" I will, of course, remind those people that there is a substantial cohort of people who attempt to treat themselves with stupid or potentially dangerous and disproven remedies allllll the time. People drink bleach. Others give their kids honey for meningitis. And, Steve Jobs delayed treatment on a surgically curable form of neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer -- identified in advance by pure coincidence (a gift from the cosmos) -- in favor of dietary change recommendations derived of dis- and un-proven "alternative medicine" therapies.

The fact that an expert applied their extensive scientific expertise -- with precision -- and only after conventional treatment failed should be less a shock and more a wake-up call to all of the people gatekeeping in the industry.

The mother of invention is necessity, and so empowering great minds to take on personal risk in search of self-cure would likely have a massive impact on health science with limited downside. Require them to demonstrate the risk is their own, and let them go thereafter.

As an aside, this reminds me of the ludicrous nature of HRT. People beyond often see an attrition of sex hormones over time. That attrition contributes to feelings of unwellness. They take seek HRT wanting to feel well, and more often than not they're denied b/c there is some small hypothetical risk to themselves associated with it. As if it's perfectly acceptable to tell someone to commit to 30 years of poor quality of life to avoid the miniscule fraction of a more often than not unproven and hypothetical increased hazard of cancer developing in a few decades. I've never been able to understand why so many people feel the need to tell others which (very reasonable) risks they can take in search of health and wellness, the latter an important category to which quality of life belongs.

[–]hexadexalex [score hidden]  (0 children)

Oh no, someone found the cure for cancer by themselves and now we can't charge cancer patients millions of dollars for tax write offs anymore! It's unethical!

[–]GTalaune [score hidden]  (0 children)

Looks like she was out of options and did the job herself. Queen 👑 don't care about ethics in that case I'd be celebrating as if I won a battle against the world in her case

[–]RaisinBran21 [score hidden]  (0 children)

This really strengthens the suspicion that the cure for cancer exist, they just don’t want to give it to everyone

[–]Busy-Setting5786 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Please guys, stop all the speculation!!! It is not like there is a multi billion dollar industry invested in not having a cure for cancer! They would gladly have a cure! It surely is just about the "ethical" situation!!!

[–]swipedstripes [score hidden]  (0 children)

I wouldn't give a fuck about Ethics in her situation. Mainstream science isn't well equipped enough to save you but you are? Fuck them. Go along try to save yourself. Makes no sense doing anything else.

[–]Captain_PumpkinheadAGI felt internally [score hidden]  (0 children)

I love the reference to Barry Marshall for intentionally infecting himself with ulcers and then cure them with antibiotics in order to prove his hypothesis.

Marshall is a badass and a hero for intentionally putting himself in harm's way to push medical science forward.

This virologist (I need to find out her name!) is awesome in a similar but not identical way! I love the comparison here!

[–]Straight-Society637 [score hidden]  (1 child)

Some people confuse ethics with bureaucracy. He's not arguing for ethics, he's arguing for bureaucracy and doesn't know it. Having a Phd doesn't make 'em smart, it makes 'em educated, and that ain't always a good thing. People have all kinds of silly ideas that come from the uppermost shelf of their own asses and assumptions and there's just no reasoning with them. Sadly, these are the kinds of people who usually go into fields like "ethics" too, the people least qualified in real terms to be there in the first place.

[–]R33v3n▪️Tech-Priest | AGI 2026 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Some people confuse ethics with bureaucracy. He's not arguing for ethics, he's arguing for bureaucracy and doesn't know it.

This. Credentials: I work in gaming/VFX and computer vision software R&D with a college, sometimes we deal with human data (with mocap involving students, for example), these projects have to go through ethics committee approval.

The ethics committee's primary consideration is to protect people. To that end, ethics committees exist to ensure that the experiments do not create disproportionate risks compared to possible benefits, that they're real science backed by real experimental process with real potential benefits, that participants give informed consent, that consent can be withdrawn, that certain populations are not unduly targeted or excluded by the experiment, etc.

Reading between the lines, it doesn't seem the critique is concerned with any specific factor that would trip an ethics committee in the specific experiment that virologist ran. She can be her own test subject under exceptional circumstances. Adjudicating exceptional circumstances is why we have humans with brains sitting on committees in the first place. Though ideally, the experiment itself should have been directed by someone else than herself.

Rather, the critique looks concerned the woman, and the doctors who approved and supervised her efforts, published their results as research but didn't go though through an ethics committee at all in the first place. (note that in certain jurisdictions like Canada, they are legally obligated to if what they do is research). He's advocating for process rather than results. Because the process does exist to protect people under most circumstances. Still frustrating whenever you see suits arguing about process rather than results, though. Especially in health and life or death scenarios for one consenting individual.

[–]Turbohair [score hidden]  (0 children)

Hmm... medical ethics... "Where to begin?"

Socialized medicine, instead of profit taking off illness. This might be a magnificent place to begin.

Be super interested to hear about how important medical ethics are in a system that prevents the proper operation of ethics in the name of profit.

Class based differences in treatment... a thing of the past?

All these super thin celebrities taking Ozempic... I guess, obesity isn't a problem if you can't pay to fix it.

If Ozempic actually fixes something.

{shrugs}

Anyway... it is certain that no system is perfect.

That should be the first five things any medical professional says about ethics in the USA system before they say anything else.

https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/top-challenges-of-2022-no-5-loss-of-trust-in-physicians

[–]redjojovic [score hidden]  (0 children)

The only risk here is these procedures not advancing due to stupid reasons

[–]Pikassho [score hidden]  (0 children)

Cancer: I am not going away, there's nothing you can do to me.

Dying Mad Scientist: You are not gonna believe what I am going to do with both of us.

Cancer: what do you mean, you're already dying, what worse can you do?

Dying Mad Scientist: Will Imma try something on me and maybe both of us will die or one of us will survive.

Cancer: what????

Dying Mad Scientist: injects viruses into herself.

Cancer: what? Are you dumb girl, you don't look dumb to me, why would you do this.

Dying Mad Scientist: I don't know, we are going to wait now. " Tumors growth decreases"

Cancer: Noooo, Screaming, No, Nooo. ohhh, YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME.

[–]Agreeable-Dog9192ANARCHY AGI 2028 - 2029 2 points3 points  (0 children)

so hes saying basically he cares more about ethics than the life of the patience itself

[–]Realhuman221 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So the ethical problem from the journal's perspective isn't that she gave the treatment herself, but rather that the journal is now promoting it. While it seems that she was smart enough to develop a new treatment, many others (even scientists) may not be as smart/lucky. They may be clouded by their own personal situation and not take the most logical treatment route, but insist on their own treatment which could kill them. I could see why a journal may choose not to promote this.

[–]Zero-PE [score hidden]  (0 children)

I know diy medicine is all the rage on this sub, but this story is not that.

Ethically shaky grounds when a scientist uses university resources to conduct research on herself without a proper ethical framework in place. No surprise that the paper was rejected by 13 journals.

Would be a different story if her treatment used something easily accessible and with no downside risk.

[–]MmmKayPicturePlease [score hidden]  (0 children)

I think this is less an ethics issue and more a cultural spread issue. Seeing headlines about curing one’s own cancer is amazing, but I think many in ethics and medical fields don’t want the mind set of “I can fix this myself”/ don’t need medical intervention to be conflated with these very unique instances of success and/ or people in the medical field trying their own treatments as an alternative for the masses. But ethically it hardly seems an issue for a person to say I don’t want x treatment or i want to do y- that’s informed consent in a nutshell. And in terms of publishing , I’ve seen far more questionable papers in journals and this one clearly states what occurred and suggests the need for more research which is great!

[–]nach_in [score hidden]  (0 children)

There are ethical concerns on any medical experiment. But once it's done and everything is fine, there's no point in arguing about what ifs.

[–]SolidCat1117 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Well, we can start with the fact that Blair is an institutionalized bootlicker whose more concerned with maintaining the status quo (i.e., his source of wealth) than he is with providing adequate health care.

[–]HandOfThePeople [score hidden]  (0 children)

Science is doing 99 things wrong to get 1 right. You have to fail to understand why you do so.

With that in mind, it absolutely didn't matter if the womens treatment worked or not. She did cancer research for herself and the rest of the world. If it didn't work, we'll know why. If it did, it absolutely needs to be looked into.

The point is, no matter what she's a real scientist, working for the greater good. She can experiment on herself if she wants, and whatever the funding was for this experiment, it would be worth it.

Great job, and fantastic for all of us that it worked!

[–]GraceToSentienceAGI avoids animal abuse✅ [score hidden]  (0 children)

Some ethicists:
-A researcher consenting to test a drug on herself to save her own life that in the end worked : Unethical❌
-Making sick healthy animals who owe us nothing with deadly diseases in order to test on them : ethical✅

[–]FriezasMom [score hidden]  (0 children)

Of course they don't want a public cancer treatment alternative. Nothing to do with ethics, just money and power.

[–]StolenRocket [score hidden]  (2 children)

There are multiple reasons why it's unethical to "treat your own cancer". Among others:

a) you could be lying about how you cured it (or even lie about having it in the first place) b) it's much harder if not impossible to verify, analyze and reproduce your results c) it's irresponsible and exploitative to subject desperate people to experimental therapies, even if it's yourself

People generally don't understand research protocols and approvals for medical therapies, but they're there for a reason, especially in biomedical research on human subjects. This story is kind of like when you hear about a criminal going free on a technicality. It doesn't seem fair in isolation, but those technicalities are there for a reason

[–]HemingbirdApple Note [score hidden]  (0 children)

Oh shit I just exploited my own penis oh no this is so unethical

[–]fastinguy11▪️AGI 2025-2026 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Lawful neutral I told you. But the results is evil.

[–]Oracle365 -5 points-4 points  (8 children)

It has nothing to do with curing your own cancer, no one in their right mind would be against that. It has to do with the ethics of experimenting on yourself. I've lost more than my fair share of people to cancer and I can understand this dilemma. But if the choices are dying from cancer and experimenting on yourself under controlled and monitored conditions I'm for it. But if you can't see the ethical dilemma with it you are not reading past the headlines.

[–]Decent_Obligation173 4 points5 points  (6 children)

I can't see the ethical dilemma. Could you please tell us what they could be in this situation? Honest question.

[–]Oracle365 [score hidden]  (5 children)

Again, I support self medical experimentation under a monitored and controlled environment only when the alternative is death. But here are some things off the top of my head.

Medical experimentation requires informed consent for hopefully obvious reasons. Can an emotionally compromised person facing their own mortality and death give consent to medically experiment on themselves ethically?

Can you trust any bias that may be introduced into the results of any successful self medical experimentation that isn't properly monitored and controlled? If someone says they cured themselves of a disease are we just supposed to take their word for it if it wasn't accomplished under proper scientific methods? I think for anyone pushing a cure that hasn't been evaluated properly that would be unethical.

Matthew Perry just died from self medication because he thought more ketamine was the solution to his troubles.

[–]EnoughWarning666 [score hidden]  (1 child)

Sounds like to me the system is so dead set against self-experimentation that she couldn't have gotten the monitored and controlled environment to do this study properly in! If the field was more open to this kind of thing, then she would have been able to reach out for more help instead of hiding it and doing it herself.

[–]Oracle365 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Her oncologists did monitor her progress. She didn't hide anything hence why we know about it.

[–]Decent_Obligation173 [score hidden]  (0 children)

I understand but disagree with you on consent. I think the scientist has every right to do whatever they want with their own lives, and if anything a scientist has more consent than a random experiment participant, because they understand the risks and ramifications much more than a lay person signing a form with a lot of legalese and scientific jargon they're untrained to understand. Would the scientist consent in the same manner as if they weren't dying? Probably not, but in the list of hills to die on, the perception of how their consent is perceived would not be a top priority when the alternative is death, I assume. I can see this being used as an example of what not to do if it went sideways, but Science is still valid if it doesn't work, it tells people not to look there again, or at least not under the exact same assumptions. It's a wonderful outcome that it worked of course, but even if it didn't, there is still scientific value in that if the experiments were done correctly.

The bias in results and success criteria is something I can agree on as a general principle, but it does look like she took steps to address that. Whether they were sufficient or appropriate are all things to have healthy debates on, of course, but as others pointed out, there are standards that would be impossible to abide by in such edge cases.

Overall I see this as a wonderful outcome for the scientist herself, as a positive for science the field, and an opportunity to debate what ethics mean in edge cases.

[–]postwarapartment [score hidden]  (0 children)

Perry is such a wildly inappropriate and poor comparison. Come on. Really think about that

[–]johnkapolos [score hidden]  (0 children)

Can an emotionally compromised person facing their own mortality and death give consent to medically experiment on themselves ethically?

Yes. Absolutely. Because a) their body their choice and b) they are the ones who are paying the stakes. Plus, your question is a loaded and expressed in a very biased tone. Emotions are part of what makes humans humane.

On the contrary, for a person who isn't going to stake their own life, the safe choice - for their position - is always the most boring protocol possible. Nobody is going to accuse you of anything and (other) people die all the time anyway.

Can you trust any bias that may be introduced into the results of any successful self medical experimentation that isn't properly monitored and controlled?

Like, you can do the respective tests and read the results. Hard numbers don't usually lie.

If someone says they cured themselves of a disease are we just supposed to take their word for it if it wasn't accomplished under proper scientific methods?

It's not hard to prove or disprove. Take the medical records before and after.

 I think for anyone pushing a cure that hasn't been evaluated properly that would be unethical.

Again, very biased language. If I document that I drank pink-flying-unicorn piss and broke the world record on scuba diving, am I automatically promoting said unicorn piss?

The actual unethical part is to suppress the documentation of my experimentation for anyone who cares.

[–]Mister_Grandpa▪️AyyyLmaoAGI 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The ethical dilemma pales in comparison with a union monopolizing healthcare.

[–]lucid23333▪️AGI 2029 kurzweil was right -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Cancer is a unusually stubborn and difficult disease to deal with. There are many many failure points in the body in which cancer can exploit to grow. Any one failure point being attacked can easily be circumvented by the cancer. The cancer is intelligent. It behaves intelligently. 

I do think it's curable, but cancers really stubborn and intelligent

[–]kvothe5688 [score hidden]  (0 children)

replies blaming bioethics are equally stupid. bioethics protect millions of people. if bioethics weren't present pharmaceuticals would have treated test subjects as fodders.

also she had every right to self experiment. concern by a single no body lecturer isn't a news

[–]FunDiscount2496 -4 points-3 points  (3 children)

Cherry picking a virtuous example doesn’t void a rule. What if the was a whack and created a dangerous strain of a virus that can wipe out half humanity? Bioethics are there for a reason and it’s not about a single life but existential problems

[–]bearbarebere▪️ [score hidden]  (1 child)

How exactly could this have created a dangerous strain of a virus that can wipe out half of humanity any more than other experiments or even just natural living?

[–]FunDiscount2496 [score hidden]  (0 children)

It’s not about “this”, it’s about a general rule. Not having oversight or allowing human experiments because it’s your own body leaves the door wide open for any kind of experimenting

[–]postwarapartment [score hidden]  (0 children)

No nuance allowed!!!!